While it is generally agreed that the HIV response has failed adolescents, there has been relatively little attention paid to the some two million HIV-positive adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa who have been truly “left behind”.

The Mzantsi Wakho study, which is partly funded by EHPSA, has spent the past three years trying to understand the lives and needs of positive adolescents in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Researchers interviewed 1,060 HIV-positive adolescents receiving care in 53 health facilities - visiting them in 150 schools and homes. This is the largest cohort of positive adolescents to be studied worldwide, and findings presented on Tuesday at the AIDS Impact Conference in Cape Town should go some way towards filling a serious evidence gap.